(No really. The kids wanted it. Honest.)

Of course, one of the selling points for me was the inclusion of the Replacements’ Alex Chilton. But the Rock Band series also seemed less Heavy Metal loaded, and includes everything from Dinosaur Jr to Elvis Costello to The Talking Heads. So, like most guitar players out there, I really wanted to play drums. Without the whole divorce-trap, space-taking, loud-as-hell deal that a real drum kit would present.

So we started our family band, with me on drums, and my daughters on vox and guitar. They picked out the name Pickles (I wanted something with more majesty. Oh well.) and we started our tour. Pickles is doing well so far, we have branched to clubs outside of Boston now, and we stick to mainly playing on medium just to reduce the failure rate.

So I have spent a lot of free time practicing. (Please don’t tell my real band. They think I’m learning our new songs, I’ll just have to fake it in a Paul Stanley sorta way next gig.) I managed to get pretty good at most of the songs on medium. Including Alex Chilton.